what is the latest game youre playing

world of warcraft

been playing:
bad north
pokeman
dungeon of the endless

also i think i finally got system shock 2 multiplayer working… maybe…

MTG Arena owns. If anyone wants to battle lets do it.

just started on Epic Battle Fantasy 5 which was just released this morning.

so far it’s a big improvement on EBF4 (which was already great and I’ve said as mich earlier in this thread), lots of new status effects and mechanics and things added which I just know is gonna add another whole layer of complexity and strategy which is exactly what I love about this series so damn much. Music so far is great too.

oh, and I’ve also got a spare 20% off steam voucher as well so if there’s any RPG fans who want to give it a shot let me know and I’ll be glad to hook you up =)

does it still look like early 2000s newgrounds anime

yes, but more refined? I dunno, it’s the same cutesy style it’s always been

epic battle fantasy owns

have fun :) I’d get it but I’m trying to save for a switch and pokeman

Hollow knight is the dark souls of metroidvanias and I say this without a trace of irony

finally got around to playing Celeste, and I’m glad I did. It’s been really good so far, and I love the first chapter’s tune. Despite it being maddeningly frustrating at times I did enjoy playing Jumper along with LUE back in the day, and An Untitled Story kicks ass so I have high hopes for this game.

Update: So right now I’m stuck on Chapter 7’s B-Side, right at the final stretch. Fuck the devs so god damn much for introducing a new mechanic right there, I cannot for the life of me get the timing right on this dash wall jump thing, and I gotta do it twice in a row perfectly.

I dread the rest of this level and what’s to come in the final post-game chapter, my fingers are killing me >_<

playing Castlevania:SoTN on my PSP

currently grinding a second Heaven’s sword from the one secret room in the Clock Tower

I don’t need a second really, but I want it. Apparently using two at once is pretty awesome and I’ve never tried it before

edit: fuck it just gamesharked a second one in I have no time for that shit anymore >_>

going through the Spyro trilogy now (I know they just made a remake but it’s not out on steam yet iirc)

I’ve 100%’d 1, and just moved on to 2. Think 2 would be my favourite of them all, can’t even really say why.

all about civ 6 on the switch these days

Playing Re7

Mario kart 8

From: Lyra at 2019-02-04 06:32:10
Playing Re7

watching him play re7, backseat driving

From: applebaps at 2019-02-03 17:05:55
all about civ 6 on the switch these days

From: Lyra at 2019-02-04 06:32:10
Playing Re7

From: roodi at 2019-02-04 19:14:26
Mario kart 8

final fantasy 9

hollow knight secret area

picked up MHW again, beat pink rath and bazelguese, fighting nergigante

still carrying on with the OG Spyro trilogy, just started 3 tonight

what I wish I was playing though is the new Hollow Knight game Team Cherry just dropped a trailer for.

I am SO fucking hyped for that it looks awesome

started Legend of Mana last night - it’s freaking beautiful, some nice spritework and kickass music too

started with Daggers but found a 2HSword that way overshadowed them in terms of damage so now I’m just slaughtering the hell out of everything with that instead

had a peek at a crafting FAQ and holy moly there’s a fuckton of complex mechanics that are literally not explained or alluded by the game at all o_o

i’ve been HELLA into zachtronics games lately (shenzhen i/o, infinifactory, tis-100, opus magnum)

really love the stiff challenge

borderlands 2 with mah lil brother I’m being melee zero and he’s being elemental Maya, the exact opposite of what we normally do

From: Alan 00X at 2019-02-19 09:58:44
I just got star fox 64. my 3ds is damaged and I have a blind spot. it’s a strange challenge to not have full view of the radar and the upper left portion of the screen

that’s a good one

From: applebaps at 2019-02-18 21:36:14
i’ve been HELLA into zachtronics games lately (shenzhen i/o, infinifactory, tis-100, opus magnum)

really love the stiff challenge

what is zachtronic?

zachtronics is a company (originally one guy named Zach but it’s a decent size now and Zach himself doesn’t run the business side of it) that makes puzzle games

http://www.zachtronics.com/

generally they’re games that involve using a set of intermediate tools or machines or code, to make things from component parts, or break them down and put them back together differently, or something

they’re also called esoteric programming games

two of them (tis-100 and shenzen i/o) literally have their own made up assembly language that the game revolves around

opus magnum is about alchemy, bonding alchemical marbles together into patterns using rotational arms

spacechem is like that too but with grabbers on a track and you’re making chemicals

exapunks is about programming viruses

infinifactory has you welding blocks together and moving stuff around on conveyors

they also made Infiniminer, which was the main inspiration for minecraft

jumped back into NetHack, it’s been years since I played but after a few false starts I’ve got back into the swing of it and got a decent run going

Lawful Dwarven Valk currently sitting at the cleared out Sokoban Zoo. So far I have achieved: Excalibur, 5 AC of protection, 3x BoH, Blessed Luck and Touchstones, maxed luck, co-aligned minetown altar, a dozen bottles of holy water and have two max-level Housecats (named Trix and Trax, one of which was my starter even) accompanying me.

So far, so good. Having said that, I’m expecting a YASD any moment now. My worst mistake so far is quaffing a blessed !oGA while wearing a ring of sustain ability. Derp. I expect to be making more idiotic mistakes shortly.

EDIT: aaaand I got murdered by a Wand of Death by some asshole Sargeant in Fort Ludios, fuck. Everything was going so well.

it also sucked because there was an altar + priest on the same level as the portal. I was getting hard thinking about all the AC I’d get from protection money + BUCing all that armour

yeah that sounds about right lol

lol nice
i’ve played nethack on and off since i was like 10 and never beaten it

i had a dream i bought a switch.

i wanna play octopath traveler

i’ve beaten nethack precisely once in 20+ years of playing it, with a lawful human valkyrie

basically just everything went right for once, it was a once in a lifetime run where things just lined up perfectly every step of the way

nice

I’ve beaten it only a handful of times, a Valk or two, a Wizard or two and I think a Samurai? I can’t recall, but it’s not a lot, and every time I either had lots of wishes/good luck/abused polypiling to a massive degree

not to mention I did read literally all the spoilers out there and several guides which helped immensely as well

yeah I gave up on playing unspoiled after about 10 years and it helped a lot lmao

been playing Baba Is You, it owns
makes you feel both dumb and smart

what’s that one

it’s kind of like sokoban but you push around blocks that change the rules of the game
so like baba is the main character and you 3 blocks that are baba, is, you next to each other which means you control baba. but (depending on the level) you can change it to ‘wall is you’ instead and now you’re controlling the walls. there’s all kinds of properties you can mess with and the puzzles are very mind-bending
also there’s a reverse time button so if you push a block into a wall accidentally you can just undo it ez
it’s hard to explain but the trailer does a good job. i’m not a huge fan of sokoban style games but this one is different

woah what the heck, that sounds cool

From: Tiko at 2019-03-20 19:25:30
baba is the main character and you 3 blocks that are baba, is, you next to each other which means you control baba.

you alway bab babacum

From: applebaps at 2019-03-20 20:29:39
woah what the heck, that sounds cool

oh, it’s not a video game but on the forums here some friends and i have been playing vampire the masquerade. i’m storytelling, it’s a blast

hooray I did it

oh shit! daaaaamn

thanks =), despite being as super-prepared and buffed up as I was there, you can still lose runs at the last moment so it’s always a nerve-wracker

yeah the astral plane can really catch you out

nice! good job

started playing horizon zero dawn

it’s so goddamn good, i’m pissed that i didn’t try it sooner

im playing octopath

been really into DJMAX Respect lately, on PS4

i put like a thousand hours into DJMAX Emotional Sense on PC back in the day and at least dabbled in Portable 1, Portable 2, and Black Square, though some of the magic was lost for me when Emotional Sense shut down

Respect is amazing. it’s kind of an anthology game, with every single Portable 1 & 2 track (which is basically most of Emotional Sense’s original track list) plus 40 more new ones. you can get clazziquai, portable 3, black square, trilogy, technika 1, 2, and 3 as DLC but like, if you want to get everything it’s expensive as hell just fyi

they also make a really really cool but suuuuuuuper expensive controller for Respect, with the trademark two turntables and something like 12 buttons. but it’s like over three hundred bucks so that’s probably not happening for me any time soon lol. in any case the game is very playable and fun on a regular controller, and people play it at the very highest level that way. (see:

the game has some really fantastic music. the new tracks for Respect are far and away some of the best in the series and that’s coming from someone with HEAVY nostalgia for the old classic stuff lol.

here’s a few samples

tok! tok! tok! (technically from tapsonic top, neowiz’s mobile rhythm game)

bullet, wanted!

killer bee

lift you up

people basically only post themselves playing it on the highest difficulties but the game is extremely accessible, way more than its closest equivalent, Beatmania IIDX. the game scales all the way down to 4 button mode and all the way up to 8 button, then two more hidden modes above that, 10 and 12 button. though the note charts are set up in a way that respects the PS4 controller’s limitations. for instance, you’ll never be asked to press left and right at the same time

here’s a 4B song, “let’s go baby”. this is one from the original game, though here it’s credited as being from Portable 1. also showcased here is DJMAX’s obsession with lesbians. seriously like every other song’s video is about gay girls lol it’s great

“let’s go baby” on 4B normal is a 2-star song. stars go from 1 to 15, with generally pretty big jumps in difficulty at 6 and 11 stars. any song can be played on any button mode, and usually there will be at least two difficulties available within that mode. so like, let’s go baby can be played on normal or hard in 4B, normal or hard in 5B, 6B, etc. sometimes there’s also a “Maximum” difficulty of a particular chart, sometimes there’s ONLY a “normal”, it varies. but there’s a looooooooooot of songs and difficulties and button modes. anyone can start getting into it somewhere

oh! and that reminds me. a lot of the older videos were in like, 240p resolution lmao. that’s how old Emotional Sense (the original game) is. so they went through and painstakingly redrew literally every old video

also distinct from IIDX is a “freestyle combo system” where basically you’re allowed to hit buttons that aren’t coming in as notes, and it doesn’t break your combo. the timing window is also fairly generous in that you can hit stuff wide to either side on the note’s proper timing and it won’t technically break your combo. however, it does sharply curtail your score unless you hit the notes dead on. so you can generally jump in really easily but there’s lots of room to get really really good

fuckin game owns. like, it’s just really good

one of the other distinctive things about DJMAX as a series is the unlockable gear/notes. fulfilling certain requirements gives you access to a good selection of different “gears” (the playing field on which the notes come in, including the score and life display, etc) and the notes themselves, which can be anything from straightforward bars to stuff like cats and eggs if you wanna get weird with it

you can also freely set the speed at which notes come in at you, even adjust it on the fly during gameplay. there’s a “Fever” mechanic that’s basically just a straight up multiplier to your score that’s kinda like star power except without the healing. triggering it repeatedly steps up the multiplier through 2x, 3x, 4x, then 5x, and doing it again before it runs out at that level just renews the 5x multiplier. you can turn this off entirely or set it to automatically go on its own if you want. you can also set various “faders” and “chaos” settings to fuck with yourself to make the game way harder, like having notes disappear partway down the field, or only appear when they’re close to the line, or making it so the speed of the track increases endlessly as it goes

also if you’re coming from more modern rhythm games, stuff based on instruments like guitar hero or rock band, you should know that DJMAX is of the old school. there’s not a backing track that stops or starts based on whether you hit the notes. it’s more that the notes themselves PLAY the track, or parts of it. and your timing determines whether the song sounds like crap or not. it’ll definitely beat a good sense of spot-on rhythm into you quickly lol. also there’s no quick healing mechanic like star power, here. every missed note (“break”) will cost you huge chunks of your life, and you only get that life back by playing many many notes with good timing. no shortcuts, play the song or fail out

im gaming on a smw romhack called jump/12

playing dark souls remastered blind

i hope u have a good surround sound setup lul

took me a sec XD

From: TJ “Henry” Yoshi at 2019-05-13 20:54:36
i hope u have a good surround sound setup lul

lol

i’m really enjoying playing Rust at the moment

From: The Applebaps of Video Games at 2019-05-13 21:51:36

From: TJ “Henry” Yoshi at 2019-05-13 20:54:36
i hope u have a good surround sound setup lul

lol

on mobile:
Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
Girls Frontline
on PS4:
Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age
God of War
Disgaea 5
on Switch:
Final Fantasy VIII
Undertale
on PC:
Fallout New Vegas modded
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC
Katana ZERO
Thimbleweed Park

i’m not going to finish any of them am i
i’ll probably sooner die

forgot Dragon Quest XI and now Caravan Stories
edit: Caravan Stories is garbage and I uninstalled twenty minutes later

Pokémon Gold Version, slowly but surely. Currently inside the rocket hideout near Lake of Rage with Lance

From: The Applebaps of Video Games at 2019-04-24 00:19:46
started playing horizon zero dawn

People stopped talking about this

From: A Talking Pokemon at 2019-09-15 08:38:35
Pokémon Gold Version, slowly but surely. Currently inside the rocket hideout near Lake of Rage with Lance

From: The Applebaps of Video Games at 2019-04-24 00:19:46
started playing horizon zero dawn

People stopped talking about this

The Pokemon has spoken.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

dark souls → mario maker → wow classic

Fallout 3 → Fallout New Vegas → Fallout 4 → Fallout 76 → Fallout New Vegas

The other day I noticed a game called Hacknet in my steam library.

So far it’s pretty fun. Basically it’s a puzzle game where you can’t use much more than a command prompt.

hacknet owns a lot imo
i love how central the command prompt is to the experience, it feels much more like Serious Movie Hacking than say, Uplink did

in fact, if you’re fast enough, during That One Sequence

just finished the Shadowbringers expansion story in ff14

easily the best story the FF series has ever done, easily the strongest writing I’ve ever seen in a jrpg much less an mmo

startin a minecraft bedrock SMP realm with some friends

I recently finished Hacknet, which showed up in my steam library at an unknown date. It’s a short, story-heavy puzzle game, and I recommend it.

From: The Applebaps of Video Games at 2019-04-24 00:19:46
started playing horizon zero dawn

People stopped talking about this

it’s cause breath of the wild came out like 3 days later lmao

it’s SUCH a good game though. between botw and hzd i think hzd is actually the better game overall, which is nuts to say because botw was very good. and also because prior to hzd, the dev team was mostly known for the killzone series which is not very good lol

I have achieved gamer greatness

which one is you

started playing ep1 of Ciconia When They Cry, the newest VN from 07th Expansion.

I’m really fascinated by the world that this is setting up. It’s a futuristic post-WW3 scenario with an eerily realistic take on the natural progression of current-day politics, but also with a bunch of crazy Black Mirror esque high tech stuff like brain hacking and environmental nanomachines that merge VR space into real life, and ascended beings that can predict the future or some shit… and the main characters are all very likeable and they all have Ryukishi’s style of character writing that just works really well at getting me emotionally invested somehow.

I’m a bit more than half way through ep1 and it’s already got me as into it as Higurashi and Umineko did.

oh shit i had no idea that was out
gonna read it

Imma wait ‘til the first 4 are out.

From: Applebaps at 2019-10-07 16:18:19
which one is you

all of them, that’s my local high score list

all roles ascended

From: iforgotnmyname at 2019-10-09 06:55:42

From: Applebaps at 2019-10-07 16:18:19
which one is you

all of them, that’s my local high score list

all roles ascended

oh jeez

congrats, damn

actually i’m a huge nethack fan but i’ve only ever ascended a valk even though i’ve played it for over a decade. spent the first 8 years or so playing entirely unspoiled deliberately. i don’t recommend it lol

how would you rank the difficulty of each role? did you have a favorite role?

got any good stories from your ascensions?

what did your ascension kits look like, was there any real variation or did everyone end up like dual wielding artifact weapon and sword, heaviest armor, ring of free action, bag of holding, wands of digging, etc

yeah I kind of wish I hadn’t spoiled myself so quickly when I first started playing it like 14yrs ago, it really takes out a lot of the challenge when you know all the tricks and it’s just execution of the same kind of strategies every time, but the game still is fun regardless

difficulty wise I had the most trouble getting Tourists up and running, had many frustrating early deaths with them, they simply do not start with anything useful for surviving so a lot of it is luck of the draw with what you find. By about mid-game once you get MR, Reflection and Poison Res you’re about set so most roles tend to converge into the same old thing. Exact kit varies per class but I prefer getting reflection from SDSM, MR from Cloak, leaving amulet free for Life Saving, which leaves hands free for two-weaponing or using a two-hander Quest Artifact for flavour.

one good story that sticks out was my Caveman run, an early poly trap turned my pet into a Baby White Dragon, which I cared for until it grew into an Adult White Dragon, which helped me kill a few pesky shopkeepers and priests and otherwise acted as a tough bodyguard. Eventually I reached Medusa’s level, but had none of the usual convenient means of crossing the water. I did, however, have a ing of conflict, and a galaxy brain moment of genius. I’d use the ring to annoy my pet dragon and goad it into shooting it’s frost breath at me, freezing me a path across the level. It was a bit tedious in reality, but the mental image of this caveman dragging and yanking a bigass dragon by a leash, yelling and taunting while ninja-dodging blasts of frozen breath was too cool to not do.

my Archeologist had some ridic early game luck, which was good because they’re another weak starter. Looted $700 from a vault on dlvl2, got scale armour, cloak of invisibility, a nice shield, speed boots and a silver sabre from a dlvl3 shop, found gauntlets of power on immediately upon entering dlvl4, reach Minetown to find a magic marker, magic lamp, magic whistle, bag of holding and co-aligned altar, go a few floors down find a second magic lamp, wish for Grayswandir, check out a shop I had avoided due to sensing a large mimic, and find a 0:1 wand of wishing which bought me the Orb of Fate, cloak of magic resistance, SDSM. I was kitted out in totally awesome gear and I hadn’t even seen Mines End or Sokoban yet.

and then there was the time I found a +6 Dwarven Cloak in the early levels of the Mines. I never knew armour could be generated that highly enchanted o.o

did you have a favorite/least-favorite quest?

a friend bought me Noita for my birthday so i’m gonna play that tonight

my present to myself was Code Vein which is fun and chill so far

in other non video games news, I’ve been busting my ass for quite a long time now to get stronger at Go, and I’m starting to be able to beat certain weaker AIs pretty consistently. I think I’m at about 15 kyu now, which means I’ve come a long way this year. I started 2019 at probably about 25 kyu.

its taken nearly constant study, working problems in downtime at work, playing on my go app when I get a spare moment, grinding out match experience and being active in my local club. it’s really paying off and it feels great to see the results on the board

I play a lot of games but Go is my real passion. but I’ve played it and been garbage at it for too long. got serious about it this year finally

finished Ciconia the other day
very much enjoyed it

at first i thought it was kind of lame because of the emphasis on battle scenes and weird mecha vibes, but it’s a true When They Cry story through and through with lots of intrigue and crazy foreshadowing

i picked up Umineko Saku in akihabara today (got a cool when they cry calendar too) so i’m looking forward to reading the extra little story

I’m obsessively reading through the Ciconia threads on 4chan and it’s kind of amazing… it’s like we’re basically back in the peak of the Umineko theorycrafting days of 2009, when nobody can spoil you on the answer because nobody actually knows what the fuck’s going on in Ryukishi’s head.

elite dangerous all day every day

wow classic → luigi’s mansion 3 → dwarf fortress

luigi’s mansion was a lot of fun
kind of burnt out on wow but i hit 60 no ragrets
df i haven’t played in a while and it’s fun seeing new stuff (bigass trees!)

df always owns, i like to come back and check it out every couple of years

bouncing between Night In The Woods and Monster Sanctuary, loving both

i just discovered Slay the Spire and it’s fucking great

i always figured there was a core fun game inside the deckbuilder genre but i’d never seen an example that wasn’t a cancerous CCG with aggressive monetization shitting all over it

slay the spire proves that yes deckbuilding is fun and interesting

From: Applebaps at 2019-10-14 06:56:22
in other non video games news, I’ve been busting my ass for quite a long time now to get stronger at Go, and I’m starting to be able to beat certain weaker AIs pretty consistently. I think I’m at about 15 kyu now, which means I’ve come a long way this year. I started 2019 at probably about 25 kyu.

its taken nearly constant study, working problems in downtime at work, playing on my go app when I get a spare moment, grinding out match experience and being active in my local club. it’s really paying off and it feels great to see the results on the board

I play a lot of games but Go is my real passion. but I’ve played it and been garbage at it for too long. got serious about it this year finally

Applebaps pwned me at go, I have no skill though. We gotta play again some time.

From: iforgotnmyname at 2019-12-18 07:15:09
bouncing between Night In The Woods and Monster Sanctuary, loving both

I played through a bunch of Night in the Woods. It didn’t feel very satisfying, it kind of just felt like a linear visual novel rather than an adventure game.

From: Applebaps at 2019-12-18 17:32:55
i just discovered Slay the Spire and it’s fucking great

i always figured there was a core fun game inside the deckbuilder genre but i’d never seen an example that wasn’t a cancerous CCG with aggressive monetization shitting all over it

slay the spire proves that yes deckbuilding is fun and interesting

There’s a difference between deckbuilding game genre vs building a TCG deck

shout outs to those who already knew

final fantasy xii

been revisiting old monster hunter titles, namely freedom unite on the psp and 4 ultimate on the 2ds

i have mixed feelings on 4u and feel like generations ultimate is way better. freedom unite still owns tho

also playing a lot of iceborne. feel like that’s been pretty great but i crave more classic mh

jumped back into Binding of Isaac for a bit, starting a new save file

starting to remember why I liked and disliked this game, it’s fun as hell but I can feel the anger coming back at losses where I narrowly miss some goal and waste half an hour. I’ve already gone thru the stress of 100%ing this game, don’t need to repeat it all over again.

fuck TBOI

(until the final expansion comes out)

man I’m very hype for repentance

i like isaac but i cant bring myself to grind for 100%

same. i feel like that takes a lot of the fun out

From: Applebaps at 2020-02-07 16:22:28
man I’m very hype for repentance

I wasn’t aware of this untill I was looking some stuff up last night. Kinda hyped now.

From: Tiko at 2020-02-07 18:24:30
i like isaac but i cant bring myself to grind for 100%

It’s a fucking challenge/grind yeah, I’m starting to remember some of the absolute bullshit this game expects you to do or throws your way. I don’t think I’ve played a game that so clearly hates its players.

i 100%ed the original version (until they released a third expansion or something?) and ive never played it again

theres just so many times where you didn’t get any damage powerups and everything just takes forever to kill its not about dodging anymore its about not being bored

From: iforgotnmyname at 2020-02-08 02:30:43

From: Applebaps at 2020-02-07 16:22:28
man I’m very hype for repentance

I wasn’t aware of this untill I was looking some stuff up last night. Kinda hyped now.

yeah, a canon port of antibirth? sign me the heck up

From: meepches and pentell at 2020-02-08 03:05:01
i 100%ed the original version (until they released a third expansion or something?) and ive never played it again

theres just so many times where you didn’t get any damage powerups and everything just takes forever to kill its not about dodging anymore its about not being bored

yeah, rebirth had some serious power curve issues that it’s taken literally all of afterbirth and afterbirth+’s extra patches to correct

the game is in a pretty good place atm with all expacs fwiw but it still sucks to get locked out of treasure rooms or to get to It Lives and realize you just don’t have the power to go beyond that without it taking 3 hours

that’s just what happens when you’re the first game in your genre and don’t have the benefit of being able to look at other games to learn what not to do i guess

it could be a lot worse, too. it could be Enter the Gungeon lmao. like 80% of the guns in that game are utter shit. at least in isaac the bad picks only amount to like 10-15% of the item pool at this point

lately ive been playing Saban’s Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid

and by playing I mean just figuring out combos in training mode

one of these days i’ll go online

I beat arcade mode without losing a character, so I won’t get clowned on super hard I hope

edit: i didnt say what it is, its a 3v3 vs-style fighter with simplified inputs

not quite as crazy as a mvc, no flying characters yet and only one person can airdash but you still got ridiculous offense and combos

which ranger do you main

my team is “Doggie” Cruger, Udonna and Dai Shi

gettin back into my old-ass rpgs, playing ToME and etrian odyssey 3

just finished dragon quest 11

I’ve been playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance for the past two weeks and I fuckin love it

it’s a great feeling to have a game that I look forward to playing every day now

it’s been literal years and years since I’ve had this. I was playing Factorio a few weeks ago but it was alright. Still sort of enjoy it but I’m way too into Kingdom Come right now

MONSTER HUNTER GENERATIONS ULTIMATE

Picked up Slay the Spire and gotten semi-addicted.

Up to A15 Ironclad, A4 Silent, A16 Defect and A2 Watcher. Kinda hitting a wall though, it’s been difficult to get runs off the ground, I keep running out of steam mid Act 2.

helltakers is cool

is this renu

she looks very drippy

she is horny all the time

still playibg ffxii zodiac and ACNH

got kinda burnt out on animal crossing
playing pso2 now

From: Tiko at 2020-05-29 14:01:14
got kinda burnt out on animal crossing
playing pso2 now

same and same
what ship are you on? pm if you want

From: Applebaps at 2020-05-29 16:35:49

From: Tiko at 2020-05-29 14:01:14
got kinda burnt out on animal crossing
playing pso2 now

same and same
what ship are you on? pm if you want

ship 1 hbu

2

rip

seems like too many people are on 2 lolz

that’s where the goons are

yeah it’s where everyone is
i’m ok with being on the smaller server tho it’s chill

yeah i think it’d probably be pretty nice to be able to walk around in lobbies without having to go through the fire and frames lol

A few months ago, I read this article:
https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/03/13/dungeons-dragons-session-became-real-life-phenomenon

Yesterday I finally tried out a branch of that, the Japan-only SNES game “Record of Lodoss War” for 3 hours, but because emulation, I failed to properly save it, so I lost my progress (I since solved and can remedy in future). I’m not sure if I’ll start it up again, but I’ll share my impressions.

Going into this game knowing that it was originally inspired by a Japanese ttrpg group helped a lot. Given the generic nature of it, I otherwise would probably have passed it off as just-another-jrpg. If somebody ran a ttrpg of it, I think I would be compelled to roleplay in the world presented. The lore is laid out right away and seems manageable, generic fantasy flavour, with roles and stories you could slip into. I only played through the first little bit, where you start off as a single character. More than once, it seems like you are KO’d intentionally and your spirit moves to a new body which is a really cool idea. That’s scripted though, so you don’t get to choose. At first you’re a legendary warrior, then a lowly thief, then an OP wizard. There is talking, wandering and retreading using new info/equipment. Based on chracter art I’ve seen, I think this is only during the intro, and future charactes are probably static. The thing that stood out most for me is the linear nature of the game. I had zero chance for exploration. Also bothered me that I couldn’t investigate barrels or shelves or things on a table, etc. The world feels more dead to me if I can only interact with NPCs. If I play more, it’ll be because I want to play beyond what might be the intro section, and finally have more party members and agency. If this is just an intro section, I think it’s a really cool way to start off the game; ease you in, instead of managing several characters from the outset, kind of like DQ4 or Live a Live. Something I also like about the game is the battle system. It feels a lot more dynamic and interesting compared to Final Fantasy. You have an isometric (this might not be the right term. not side on, not first person, but turned 45º) grid of 3 or 4 by 4 or 5, so a rectangle. You have a move action, then an action-action. If you want to escape, move off the board. Magic can be cast across the field, melee is next-to (obviously). A battle feels more pressing in this game, since distance and spacing matters when you have an enemy - or multiple enemies! - upon you in a turn or few. I’d like to learn how battle are late in the game. In other RPGs, it’s navigating the turn-based structure and juggling multiple abstract effects, but this game might be more like tactical D&D grid combat.

Oh yeah. The music is generic and reptitive but fine. The art is not bad and standard SNES RPG, with nice anime portraits for party dialogue. Just navigating the UI, I love seeing an RPG not made by Square of Enix. There is a persistent frame throughout the entire game, like Super Game Boy except stylized like a fancy picture frame. If I play more, maybe I’ll check out the anime.

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2155/

Can you guys suggest any other Japan-only fan-translated games?

I have a group of 3 other friends I’ve been playing GTAV with since covid started. We started Borderlands 3 about 2 weeks ago. And it’s been awesome

Gunfire Reborn

Early access roguelite looter-shooter with cute furry characters

Pretty fun so far, I can see some potential here

Look at this adorable mf you play as

also I just unlocked the badass Gunzerker Rasta Dogoo

that just sounds like borderlands with extra steps

I started a megaman legends playthrough last week I should keep going

new character for power ranger battle for the grid but they goofed up and you cant prepurchase the whole season yet!!! 😠

looks very fun though

i love a projectile that just sits there for a second

gunfire is fun

From: meepches and pentell at 2020-07-16 03:19:14
i love a projectile that just sits there for a second

same

play SYNTHETIK

From: Kuru Seed at 2020-07-16 03:38:21
gunfire is fun

I bought it expecting to play it for a few hours and set it aside, but I’m playing it consistently for at least an hour a night at this point - just turn off the music, start Spotify with some nice music, and do a couple of runs.

Starting to play more Halo from the Halo: Master Chief Collection on PC.

Halo 3 dropped two days ago, so the three Halo games I care about (and Reach) are now available and let me play online with some people on Steam, which is really nice and reminds me of high school/college when I used to play a bunch with people IRL.

i’m training for the 2020 US e-Go Congress, it’s been moved online due to the pandemic

i’m entering the US Open and the DDK tournaments, both as a 10kyu which i think is probably about right

also playing a fuckload of Don’t Starve for some reason

From: iforgotnmyname at 2020-06-19 05:47:08
Gunfire Reborn

Early access roguelite looter-shooter with cute furry characters

Pretty fun so far, I can see some potential here

Look at this adorable mf you play as

This and pso2

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 17:15:41
i’m entering the US Open and the DDK tournaments, both as a 10kyu which i think is probably about right

i didn’t learn nothin

X to doubt from a very crappy Go player (me)

oh lol yeah i’m learnin

feels like i’m right on the cusp of breaking through into SDK

i can occasionally peel a 3 or 4 handicap game off of 1k/1d amateurs but my OGS rank begs to differ

What are you studying/reading to help you along the way?

lotta stuff lol. especially when i was trying to make a breakthrough in the low DDKs i read a LOT. these days i’m more focused on playing lots and lots of games to let the theory settle in

i think the book that woke me up the most was actually not a go book, it was sirlin’s “play to win”

kageyama’s “fundamentals” was hugely influential on my play. it’s like my little yellow bible

“rescue and capture” is an excellent book of problems that helps me get stones out of bad situations a lot once i started internalizing the situations

“fighting fundamentals” by jasiek is also great though it’s a bit technical / mathematical for my current playstyle

i also train occasionally with a leela zero setup on my pc. it’s important not to play against AI too much or they can actually just crush your desire to play at all. if you just do like an opening and midgame against one and then review their recommendations afterwards you can get a lot out of it in a short time tho, usually with minimal feelings of puny mortality lol

i really can’t emphasize enough though the importance of match experience. more than anything else the thing that’s helped me get stronger has been little doses of theory coupled with LOTS of matches to let it cook into something i can use. after a while you start to recognize good and bad shape, potential places to go, forcing moves, situations where you’re in danger, where you’re alive, etc. but you really can’t fake it

I remember on the go server I used to play on a long time ago they had a chat channel for game reviews/analysis? Have you found that useful?

I haven’t played Go in quite some time due to personal time limits, but yes, I’ve always found that playing was equally (if not slightly more) important to my improvement as reading/studying.

I still try to do some daily tsumego though.

YES. reviewing games is crucial. just like watching your own replays in a fighting game, or anything else like this imo. there’s two ways to do reviews i think, with their own merits and flaws

you can review right then and there after a game so it’s fresh, and do it with your opponent so you get their perspective too. this is basically impossible to do right now because of the pandemic. this improves your reading and memory though which are important skills for playing on a real board

the other way is to take an electronic game record in SGF format and feed it to an AI after you let your mind rest for a while. like a day or two later go over it with the bot and see what they think. bot reviewing gets to the heart of things but can be tough to understand at first since all you see is winrates and stuff.

i have a tsumego app on my phone and i’ll do some in my downtime too yeah

i love the game so i tend to be thinking about it a lot, going over stuff in my head with spare brain power in my downtime, or wanting to play it a lot lol. i think the game you try to get really good at should be like that, personally, because it’s going to take so much of your time, you’ll want it to be something you’re naturally inclined to want to do anyway. obsession is a plus

i go through phases of development where tsumego will help me more or reading books will help me more or playing will, etc

i also like goproyeonwoo on youtube, she’s a pretty strong korean pro who does very helpful videos in the post-AI era, i’ve found her analysis really invaluable for learning from the bots https://www.youtube.com/user/goingceo which is key to being strong now

you can definitely play too much, also

go in particular is very taxing mentally. i’ve overtrained and gotten to a point where it felt like i couldn’t make moves with any meaning

then i had to take a longer rest from the game, sometimes as long as a month where i have to just ban myself from thinking about the game or playing at all until i recover

it’s tough to know where your line is sometimes but it’s important to know so you don’t overtrain or overplay

The two different review styles appeal to me as a former high school and collegiate chess player as they are very similar to how I would review and learn from my chess games.

The choices when I bought my go set were specifically geared towards this with single convex stones - then I moved half way across the country and away from my go playing friends so I haven’t been able to play in person in some time.

Good luck in the open!

yeah our local club here hasn’t met since the pandemic really started hitting us in March. 4 months without touching the stones, ugh. i actually just broke out my set this morning to do some research and just to like, hold and feel the stones again. i really miss it

you play chess, eh? i’ve heard that chess and go have both been seeing record numbers of people streaming and watching online lately. like 50k+ for chess on twitch which is unheard of and awesome

and thanks! this will actually be my first major tournament so i’m really looking forward to having my ass handed to me lmao. it’ll be valuable experience either way

I’m a weird one and I love spending time holding the stones in front of the board and, for more in depth problems, will lay out the board and place/remove stones.

For some reason that helps my memory.

you said you have single convex stones, what material are they? i have yunzi stones myself. love the feel, the weight, and the way they glow in the light

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:18:53
I’m a weird one and I love spending time holding the stones in front of the board and, for more in depth problems, will lay out the board and place/remove stones.

For some reason that helps my memory.

not weird at all! or if it is, i’m also weird. the physicality of go is a big part of what attracted me to the game in the first place

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:19:52
you said you have single convex stones, what material are they? i have yunzi stones myself. love the feel, the weight, and the way they glow in the light

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:18:53
I’m a weird one and I love spending time holding the stones in front of the board and, for more in depth problems, will lay out the board and place/remove stones.

For some reason that helps my memory.

not weird at all! or if it is, i’m also weird. the physicality of go is a big part of what attracted me to the game in the first place

They’re yunzi and I adore them.

think i’m probably 4 or 5 stones stronger on a real board than online

aren’t they awesome? i won’t settle for any other material at this point. i’ve played with shell and slate japanese stones even and i prefer the yunzi tbh

I would eventually like to get a nice set of shell and slate stones, but that’s for when I’m retired and can spend all of my time drinking coffee/tea and playing go.

yeah like, those are THE stones for a super serious retirement set just because of the history

but they tend to be quite fragile stones, they chip really easily and they’re also harvested endangered species lol

I probably wouldn’t get new ones - I’d buy a pre-owned set.

yeah

for one thing that’d be the only way to actually afford them lol

It’s kind of like yunzi - you can clean them but they change their appearance from just being handled, and I think that’s cool.

yeah definitely. same sort of appeal there

what kind of board and bowl material do you have? bamboo and ….. shit i forgot what kind of bowls i have. maple? idk. nothing special. i got a yellow mountain imports set a long time ago lol

If you got it from YMI then we probably have the same set. Bamboo table board and turned jujube bowls: https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Mountain-Imports-Jujube-Carrying/dp/B000JX6WPU

haha almost! these are my bowls: https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Mountain-Imports-Bamboo-Stones/dp/B0058LTQ1A/

so i guess they’re bamboo

Yeah. I bought mine as a set which they no longer offer as I think they stopped offering yunzi stones over the lead scare.

I just don’t let children handle the stones and wash my hands after I’m done/don’t eat/drink around my go board and stones.

If there’s interest I have previously created https://baduk.thread.zone/.

i had no idea yunzi stones had lead in them, holy shit

i’m looking around now to get more information

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:28:11
If there’s interest I have previously created https://baduk.thread.zone/.

it says not authorized! is the zone private?

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:29:09
i had no idea yunzi stones had lead in them, holy shit

i’m looking around now to get more information

Some of them do. It’s not every batch. There was a scare and people were ordering lead test kits and chasing up YMI for exchanges.

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:29:22

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:28:11
If there’s interest I have previously created https://baduk.thread.zone/.

it says not authorized! is the zone private?

Fixed - I set it to private after creating it because I was thinking about the structure I wanted to open it with and then just sort of forgot about it.

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:30:25

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:29:09
i had no idea yunzi stones had lead in them, holy shit

i’m looking around now to get more information

Some of them do. It’s not every batch. There was a scare and people were ordering lead test kits and chasing up YMI for exchanges.

jeez. well, i mean, if there’s lead in my stones… i’ve routinely snacked while playing, i’m drinking coffee even right now as i play with my set at home, i’ve played with older people on this set

i think i’d like to test my set and see. thanks for mentioning that! no matter how nice they feel or look, if they’re a health risk i’m going to take that seriously

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:29:22

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:28:11
If there’s interest I have previously created https://baduk.thread.zone/.

it says not authorized! is the zone private?

Fixed - I set it to private after creating it because I was thinking about the structure I wanted to open it with and then just sort of forgot about it.

cool, thanks! lemme just pop in there rq

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:32:58

jeez. well, i mean, if there’s lead in my stones… i’ve routinely snacked while playing, i’m drinking coffee even right now as i play with my set at home, i’ve played with older people on this set

i think i’d like to test my set and see. thanks for mentioning that! no matter how nice they feel or look, if they’re a health risk i’m going to take that seriously

https://www.usgo.org/news/2014/02/yunzi-stones-and-lead-an-update/

https://www.amazon.com/3M-717834209102DUPE-LeadCheck-Swabs-8-Pack/dp/B008BK15PU is what many people used to test.

From: MasterOfMagic at 2020-07-16 18:33:42

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 18:32:58

jeez. well, i mean, if there’s lead in my stones… i’ve routinely snacked while playing, i’m drinking coffee even right now as i play with my set at home, i’ve played with older people on this set

i think i’d like to test my set and see. thanks for mentioning that! no matter how nice they feel or look, if they’re a health risk i’m going to take that seriously

https://www.usgo.org/news/2014/02/yunzi-stones-and-lead-an-update/

sadly, i don’t know if we can really trust test results from a chinese factory tbh. they’re at grave risk of losing face if it gets out that they still have lead contamination so they have a strong incentive to lie

i think i’ll get a home testing kit and find out if my particular stones have lead in them or not

Always good to test for yourself.

for anyone reading this who’s not in the baduk zone: i tested my stones, it came back negative

been playing Death Stranding and the new super hot

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-16 17:15:56
also playing a fuckload of Don’t Starve for some reason

update to this: after 120 hours i finally beat Adventure Mode
i used WX-78 and i strongly recommend if you’re trying to do it too, use them. lots of gears in adventure mode

From: Tiko at 2020-07-20 22:25:00
been playing Death Stranding and the new super hot

how is that btw, the new super hot

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-20 22:48:36

From: Tiko at 2020-07-20 22:25:00
been playing Death Stranding and the new super hot

how is that btw, the new super hot

it owns
the core gameplay is the same as the original but they added a bunch of meta progression type stuff that adds a ton of playability
the systems they use are really similar to the two games i made but implemented 100x better lolz

also added some new weapons which are neat

From: Tiko at 2020-07-21 00:12:40

From: Applebaps at 2020-07-20 22:48:36

From: Tiko at 2020-07-20 22:25:00
been playing Death Stranding and the new super hot

how is that btw, the new super hot

it owns
the core gameplay is the same as the original but they added a bunch of meta progression type stuff that adds a ton of playability
the systems they use are really similar to the two games i made but implemented 100x better lolz

also added some new weapons which are neat

lol nice

Finally got the season pack so I got the new purple ranger

He’s really cool, he’s got a short swing blow type thing that you can stop after the backstep part and either charge up for a bionic arm or cancel out of which seems like it’ll be really sweet, and you can cancel into it on hit or block so you can sort of always abort your pressure pretty safely.

I also spent some time in the lab and squeezed significantly more damage and some extra meter out of a BnB for Doggie, with the plus side of having it end with his super impractical rekka move that looks really cool, and made my Udonna BnB slightly meter positive and got a little bit more damage on it.

Not sure if RJ is gonna be my third though, even after trying out like four different anchors I can’t decide. I need to lab a BnB I like for him.

I have been kind of at a loss since beating GTA5.
Before that I was mainly playing Satisfactory, but my interest in that comes and goes now. Noita is fun, but I am very bad at it. Death Stranding is fun, but I don’t love watching hours of cutscenes every day. New Superhot looks good, but I never beat the old Superhot. Carrion looks good, but I don’t want to pay full price for it.

Playing a new game. It’s called “Steam Controller Good Input Device Simulator”. It’s played by sitting in my living room in front of my TV and configuring the Steam controller on my living room gaming rig to not be horrible in a wide variety of games.

I haven’t won a round yet, but I’ll getting close. Last round I managed to get the Steam controller to not feel like I was stuck in the mud or so sensitive it gave me motion sickness in Fallout: New Vegas.

Update: I was able to get through the tutorial mission stuff in F:NV without wanting to switch to KB+M, so I think I’m going to call this round a win.

Using the controller in keyboard+mouse mode with the buttons bound as they would be on the 360 controller but using mouse input for the right trackpad means I can flick my finger and do a 180 while playing, and I have gyro aiming for small adjustments while aiming down sights.

This would have been so much easier if F:NV would accept input from an XInput controller and a keyboard and mouse simultaneously…

As a reward I get to play the “what’s the correct load order to not crash F:NV when I mod the everloving stuffing out of it”?

the new halo its like im back in 2007 all over again